These cupcakes are the memory of strawberry shortcake. Light buttery cake, sweet/tart strawberry rhubarb filling, and a creamy lemon buttercream frosting. A perfect use for the rhubarb at the farmer's market this spring.

Chocolate and booze. In excess, both are detrimental to your health and waistline. But in moderation, they can be incredibly decadent!

My experience with gluten free or flourless chocolate cakes is that they either require almond flour, which can be expensive, hard to find, and complicates this dish for someone who has a nut allergy, or they are intense and dense and one or two bites is all you want before it feels too heavy. This cake is neither. No almond flour and it is surprisingly light. With just the right orange flavor and the bright raspberry sauce it is decadent and refreshing.

Snickerdoodle cookies are really quite easy. Basic ingredients and a dusting of cinnamon sugar, these cookies come together quickly and have a great balance between soft and chewy. If you love cinnamon and sugar, these are a great treat.

Sometimes a long trusted recipe is just begging for an update. I have been making my mother's banana bread recipe for a decade and eating it for almost three.

These are the infamous Momofuko Milk Bar cookies. They are complicated. They are time consuming. They are also probably the best cookie I have ever made. You can't take any shortcuts with this cookie. They are an investment in your time, but a worthwhile one.

A yeasted fruitcake, Stollen is a great holiday bread. It's chock full of dried fruit and nuts and sweetened with honey. Dusted in a heavy coat of powdered sugar, to me a baked stollen invokes the crisp snowy mornings in Michigan this time of year.

Does this happen to you? You're up late, watching a movie, and your sweet tooth strikes. There's nothing in the pantry, and a handful of chocolate chips from your baking supply seems like a poor solution. I've tried easy microwave mug cakes, cookies, and brownies...something about them is just strange. They remind me of the end result of the 1980's Easy Bake Oven of my childhood. Sure it looked like a cake, but it definitely tasted like it was baked with a lightbulb. What I really want when this happens is something sweet that tastes like a lot of effort went into it.

This is my homage to pumpkin pie. A pumpkin pudding with a brown sugar meringue. A much smoother consistency with a light marshmallow meringue topping. The best part? The ginger snap crust. Seriously I'll never use graham crackers for a cheesecake ever again.

Pumpkin. Beer. Brownies. You read that right. In this case, pumpkin cappuccino beer brownies. OMG. These are insanely good. One of the things Ryan and I miss most from Michigan (apart from friends and family of course) is the beer. There are so many great microbreweries in West Michigan and we've found some great beers that we are very loyal to. Unfortunately, none of those beers make it this far west. As we explore the Pacific Northwest beer scene we get to sample some really great and unusual beers. One of these is Elysian Brewing's Punkuccino. A pumpkin cappuccino stout. It's like my two favorite beverages (coffee and beer) had a tryst in a pumpkin patch. I mean this in the best possible way. The beer is excellent and was the inspiration for this recipe.

This recipe is top secret, in fact this post will self destruct in 10 minutes...seriously though, this recipe is special. Everyone has that one recipe in their family. The one that's been passed down, talked about, maybe even kept secret? For my family it has got to be my Great Grandma Linsner's oatmeal cookies. This recipe has been passed down four generations now, and baking and eating these cookies feels like a connection to my Great Grandma. I can imagine Francis Linsner making these cookies in her own kitchen, mixing the batter, baking dozens of cookies for family and friends.